As chief information officer and senior vice president at software vendor Bentley Systems, Claire Rutkowski spends a great deal of time talking to Chief Technology Officers and other tech-minded people in AEC firms. Earlier this summer she hosted a panel at the Environmental Financial Consulting Group's Technology Leadership conference on what technology for remote work means in the future, as some firms transition to bring some workers back to the office. Rutkowski took the time to chat with ENR Senior Technology Editor Jeff Rubenstone about how technology is enabling long-term remote working, and what managers must learn to run a hybrid office. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

新利18备用恩恩：在这里，我们是一年多的Covid-19中断，许多公司仍然有员工在家工作或者开始将他们带回办公室。在Bentley Systems以及您经常交谈的行业公司中，您对此的经验是什么？

资助:This is a different world now. We're coming out of the pandemic into a world where employees have very high expectations and are being very clear about the fact that they don't want to go into the office every day. They want to have a hybrid model.

很多人都来自于这一流行病的[阶段]，重新评估他们的生活优先事项以及他们正在做的事情。有很多竞争对于合格的人才和许多合格的才能问，你有远程或混合选项吗？

我认为大多数公司都在思考他们将不得不去混合杂交，以吸引合适的人才，但另一件事要注意的是 - 虽然我们不知道Δ变体会发生什么- 与此同时的生活继续存在。企业继续，可交付成果已经见过面，尽管旧学校的思想思考“我必须看到你要知道你的工作，”我认为人们在整个大流行中实现了，在许多情况下，生产力已经上升了，不要下来。

ENR: Being present in the office was a key part of many office cultures before the pandemic, with managers walking cubicle rows to confirm everyone is getting work done.

Pre-pandemic, most people were in the office. The managers did go up and down the rows, looking over people's shoulders, sitting in on design reviews and seeing literally see how things were going. During the pandemic everybody was remote, so managers have pretty much I think figured out the skill of managing remote colleagues. Or, if they haven't figured it out, the evidence of that is now becoming very visible.

But I think they're actually in for a harder time than that, because pre-pandemic was a level playing field, with most people in the office. Most people out of the office, working from home, is also [a level playing field]. Now we're going to get into a time where 70% of people want to be in or out, a hybrid [arrangement]. And some are going to be all the way at home and some are going to be all the way in the office for most companies. And it's not a level playing field anymore.

所以经理将要学习那些技能。“所以现在我必须管理遥控器？我必须亲自管理，我必须让每个人都感到相似。“这是一个完整的不同挑战。这是一个全新的球比赛，我认为需要培训。它需要对人们没有不得不处理的不同事情进行真正的集中度。

他们将不得不成为那些确保没有办公室的团队和遥远的B团队的人。他们将不得不确保当他们有会议时，他们不仅仅是那天有所有的“在办公室”的人 - 他们将不得不要小心他们如何将团队携手共同，因为它赢了在一起，但它不会让每个人都分开和[工作]要么远程。它会介于两者之间。

ENR: Do you think there’s some anxiety among remote workers about not responding fast enough to requests, that persistent suspicion that managers think everyone who comes into the office is by default more on the ball?

Exactly, and I think that's something that managers are really going to have to watch for. They're going to have to mediate relationships between the people on their teams to make sure they are alert for resentment or jealousy, or that somebody who has chosen to be remote is kind of gradually shutting down, feeling less included and becoming disengaged. Because if the people who do not come in the office start feeling disengaged from the people who do then then you're going to see a loss of productivity and you don't want that right? I mean, purely from a work perspective. Lack of engagement is a lack of productivity is a loss of profit margin and revenue.

So I think managers are going to have to continue that understanding and empathy, and so are the leaders of the companies that used to have everyone in the office and decided to go hybrid. They can't choose to go hybrid to attract talent but then resent it everyday. Because that's not really fair either.

ENR: There’s also the issue of overworking and the reluctance to take time off that was already there before the pandemic in this industry. You have some work cultures where no one wants to be seen as absent or not totally engaged at all times, which gets extra stressful in extended work-from-home scenarios.

去年和今年,我已经讲过和emailed and written about mental health to the people on my team more than I ever have before. Whether it was at the beginning of the pandemic or later on, I could tell that people were online at like crazy hours and they sounded kind of tired. And I know there's the stress of the pandemic and everything around it to take into account as well.

And that may have been some of it, but I think it was also was they were really afraid that they were going to be let go. And so I found myself in the kind of unusual position of having a mandatory "all hands" in which I told everybody to stop working so hard.

之前我从来没有这样做过，但我知道他们在不健康的时间里工作，我不得不明确地说“看起来，没有人在看你的虚拟肩膀。”我明白了，有事情发生了，所以让我们找到一种方法来缓冲工作和家庭之间的缓冲区，我给了他们一些建议，然后这是一封关于自我照顾的电子邮件。没关系没关系。可以取消当天的会议是可以的。如果你只是感到焦虑和压力，你不必打开当量相机，你知道吗？因为我知道有些人发现那种精神疲惫。

新利18备用恩恩：您是否在与CTOS和公司的其他人的对话中看到更广泛的行业中焦虑的类似迹象？

I think people in general are getting burned out. Not only do they have the pressure of trying to keep up the momentum and keep up with deadlines, but they’re doing it remotely and having to do virtual design reviews. Maybe they’re using virtual reality if they're lucky enough, but otherwise everything is just a little bit harder to do. It's that overall uncertainty of just not knowing what's going to happen next [with COVID-19]. It's exhausting.

ENR: Do you get the sense that, over a year into this, companies and management are beginning to adapt to the new state of affairs?

在光明的一面，我认为公司通过大流行意识到他们的同事可以信任远程富有成效，因此他们现在更开放。他们必须利用很多数字协作工具并习惯异步通信。

I think companies are much better equipped to handle it and have the right tools at least to handle it. And so the emphasis, as it did for me, moves from tools and skills and equipping people to care about and support people, mental health, engagement, and inclusivity, particularly from middle managers, to level that playing field. I would like to think that makes the AEC industry a more inclusive and better place to work overall.

ENR: Construction is often seen as being behind the curve on new technology and management styles. Do you think the industry is going to adapt to these new ways of working?

对于大多数人来说，人们将在这里接受这个机会。我不认为这是一个授权返回办公室的选择，或者能够启用混合工作模型或让人们完全偏远地工作。这是一个领导力挑战。但它也是领导机会，是行政长官的机会

CEOs will say “I’ve seen you all work productively for the last year and a half. I trust you to make the right choices for you and for your families about where you want to spend your time and how you want to work. But I also trust that you'll focus and work productively at work—whether you're at work at your desk, or whether you're at work at home.”

我认为这样做的首席执行官将会发现吸引和保持人才更容易，他们员工的参与和士气将改善，他们将提供更加包容的工作场所。我认为他们会感到更加支持和欢迎，只要他们可以与他们的经理制定合适的类型的时间表。

For me it's a “lean in” moment. Are you going to do it or are you going to slip backwards?

Claire Rutkowski joined Bentley in 2016 from MWH Global where she served as chief information officer, responsible for delivering IT strategy, services, and support to 7,000 engineering professionals around the world. She now heads Bentley’s global IT organization, shaping and delivering a technology agenda across its global business.